Matt Bruenig has written in many journals. He also has
a blog, where this post appeared. He analyzes a fairly
straightforward question: Can schools end poverty? The column is a
commentary on the “reformers” who say that we can’t end poverty
until we fix schools, or something to that effect. We have heard
the same statement from Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, Joel Klein,
Bill Gates, and others. Duncan says that even the President agrees.
Bruenig analyzes these three statements:
- Education is a way to end
poverty. - Education is the best
way to end poverty. - Education
is the only way to end
poverty.
He starts his short analysis with
this statement: These are all false, but since number
three is the one Rhee and Duncan and the education reformer crowd
pushes, let’s start there. It is flatly not the case that to end
poverty you need to alter education. Americans should know this.
Starting from the 1960s, we
as a society cut outrageously high rates of elderly poverty by
71%. We did that by sending old people checks called
Social Security. We also know from international data that
low-poverty countries get that way through tax and transfer
schemes, not unlike Social Security (I, II).
If you are saying nothing but education will dramatically cut
poverty, when things other than education absolutely will and have,
you are an enemy of the poor. You are contributing to a discursive
world where people ignore the easiest, most proven ways to cut
poverty. If this is true, and I think it is, all the
energy and billions expended on school reforms that are totally
lacking in evidence–like VAM and merit pay and privatization of
public funds–is a handy distraction from meaningful ways to end
poverty.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I would guess that the goal of the privatization and testing movement is NOT to end poverty, but it is to make money and just leave some people behind even further than they already are. This time around they are choosing to label as many people: students, teachers, professors, schools and universities as failures, kick them out of jobs, and replace them with low paying temps in order to siphon off the money for themselves, the privileged few. But, as long as the propagand exists that to care about everyone is “socialistic” and to be feared, shunned, and stopped, we’ll never get people out of poverty, because a new level of living is quickly coming into place where poverty will be the norm. We will be told that we are “college ready” but can’t afford to go … and it won’t matter if everyone can only make minimum wage … who will need college? or teachers? or hope? No one. Just those who have enough to buy out everyone else without blinking an eye will be above the poverty level. Greed has ruined the American Dream.
I think saying schools will/can/should end poverty so let’s get rid of public schools is like saying that stoplights slow down the economy because people can’t get where they need to go as fast so let’s get rid of stoplights.
It will create more mayhem and leave more up to luck and chance. Some people just seem to associate public services with socialism or something, which is a shame.
My life mantra is from Pasteur: chance favors the prepared mind. In the proposed system (that of privatization of public schools), chance will favor the wealthy and the lucky.
An advanced nation should know better than this.
“It is flatly not the case that to end poverty you need to alter education. Americans should know this.”
I can never tell whether this argument is actually meant to be taken seriously or if it’s just supposed to be a talking-point rebuttal to ed reformers. I tend to think it’s not meant to be taken seriously — that what people who make this argument actually believe is that education is in fact one of many ways that poverty can be alleviated.
But if we take the argument seriously, and if our priority is to reduce poverty, then faced with a choice between (1) spending additional money on education or (2) sending checks to the poor, we should choose #2. Right?
why does it have to be a choice between 1 and 2?
I don’t see it as an either/or.
Also, I don’t think we are ever going to end poverty. I think we have to have systems in place to deal with poverty. To think we are going to end it is like expecting 100% of children to be mastering state tests by 2014. It is unrealistic.
The poor have always been with us. And they always will be. The goal should be to keep as small a part of the population in that category as possible. But to set out to end it is like setting out to live forever. Ain’t gonna happen.
Re: whether we can “end” poverty — right, some degree of poverty is probably unavoidable. I assume that the author of the piece referenced in this post agrees, and chooses to use “end” when he really means “substantially reduce.” It’s easy to argue that education cannot “end” poverty. Harder to argue that education cannot “help reduce” poverty. But it’s all hyperbole, all the time in the online education reform debates.
Because (1) there’s not unlimited money, so you always have to make decisions about what’s a better use of what money you have; and (2) giving money directly to the poor is the way to end poverty, and education is not.
This obviously assumes that (1) you believe that giving the poor money can end poverty and education cannot end poverty; and (2) that your top priority is to end poverty.
Flerp:
All I’ve got for ya is the teach a man to fish idea.
If there is not enough money for both, you figure out where each can take a hit OR how one can help the other.
Creativity. Synecticos.
Call me crazy, but my ideas far outweigh any mandates or tests or privatization ideas. I just need time to model them. And I will.
I have seen what a strong community can look like. A strong community still has poor people in it. But is has places they can go for relief from their suffering.
A strong community does not waste its resources or its people.
Our society at large wastes both.
Why not both? And why not several other choices as well? (3) Make healthcare, especially prenatal and early childhood healthcare, more affordable and accessible. (4) Create more living wage jobs, if necessary through a re-birth of the Civilian Conservation Corps/Works Progress Administration or some similar program. (5) Implement supportive, community-based policing rather than the alternatively negligent/abusive systems usually found in poor neighborhoods. (6) Provide mental health and substance abuse services. (7) Work with the community in poor neighborhoods to physically improve the neighborhood in ways that don’t simply drive out the poor people.
“Why not both?”
Because one of the two choices apparently “is not a way to end poverty” and the other one is. If you believe that, there is no reason to spend any more money on education if your goal is to end poverty. “It is flatly not the case that to end poverty you need to alter education.”
But maybe education does have some effect on poverty.
I agree with you. However, when there is supposedly a limited amount of money available, how is it divided? Let’s say there is a static amount of money and there are 100 people. If two people have more than 50% of the money, then 98 people have the other 50%. If, of those 98 people, 10 have 10% of the total and 20 have 35% of the total, that leaves 5% for the remaining 68 people. You can divide the pot however you want, but there will never be a way out of poverty as long as the $$$ are skewed for the few. Wonder why there is poverty?
False choices.
How about paying a living wage to all workers, and allowing them to freely join unions, regardless of their education?
It wasn’t so long ago that industrial unions like the auto and steelworkers provided middle class wages to millions of workers, and indirectly – through the “Invisible Hand” of negotiating pay scales that even non-union employers had to approach – to many millions more.
It was once possible to live a materially comfortable, dignified life without being a “knowledge worker” (Lord, how I hate that smug, self-satisfied term), but the Overclass funders of so-called education reform and their political brokers have made that an impossibility in today’s US.
Oh, I should have mentioned that even “knowledge workers” face poverty and insecurity: witness the hundreds of thousands of highly educated college adjuncts, earning poverty wages without benefits or job security of any kind.
Further proof that one of the dirty little secrets of so-called education reformers is that, deep down inside, they really believe that committed teachers are chumps, and deserve what’s coming at them.
If school “reform” really did end poverty, the “reformers” would be the first to panic.
reformers remind me of when I was in second grade and I decided to erase my whole desk to clean it.
Mostly I just needed something to do, I had a big eraser, and the desk did have that layer of dirt on it that went away when you erased it.
But really. . .that was a silly thing for me to do. But I was there. And I had the eraser. And it was dirty.
They are there. They have money. And there is poverty and areas for growth in public schools.
But there’s gotta be a better way.
I believe capitalism requires winners and losers. It requires haves and have nots. It requires some poverty and unemployment. Otherwise there wouldn’t be so much wealth for the few.
Agreed.
Well, I believe that we should educate communities, not just “send money” to anyone. I believe that money SHOULD BE spent to pay people WELL who give their lives to helping others. It is a shame that there are those that are so shallow and ideologically bound to 18th century suppositions that they can’t allow the public schools to continue. They have been at it ever since the rumors started that public education is “liberal’ because it tries to treat ALL students equally. But, some don’t want educated. They prefer to take their ideologies with them to the grave and pull others along. There is such a scrambled mess of misinformation and lies swirling around the U.S. right now that it is nauseating. Ignorance trumps thinking. Or as Orwell said in “1984” … WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Here we are.
I wish I could point to the data. Perhaps there is a pastor out there who has it on hand. I didn’t need to store the reference once I was presented with the evidence. If you look at church giving, the churches that dedicate more of their resources (%) to mission are those who have the least. The richer a congregation the more assets they have to protect and the less they dedicate to mission. So, take your random hedge fund millionaire…granted we have no reason to expect such a fellow to be particularly mission minded, rather the reverse. He is in it for the big bucks and wants as many of them for himself as he can get. Say he finds Jesus.. Halleujah…he is still going to dedicate less of his stash to good works than the believer living on the edge. So, here we have a bunch of “believers” in educational reform who happen to have an obscene amount of money to devote to their vision of educating the masses. They can attack this crisis with religious fervor and still not put a dent in their wealth but increase the wealth of less philanthropic but mission driven comrades. The beauty of a public service is that service has to be the focus. There is no legitimate way to make a fortune. We are pretty adept at corrupting such institutions and need to be more vigilant, but handing public services to the for profit, private sector is not the way.
Agreed.
This is similar to the NPR talks this morning about public/private partnerships for transportation. At the end of the day, there are some things that are not going to make money.
And as a pastor’s daughter I will echo what I always heard my father say and fight for: it takes both church charity efforts and community charity efforts, as well as a strong system of public services to help alleviate suffering among the poor.
Notice I did not say end poverty. That is a noble idea, but not realistic. Alleviate suffering, provide opportunities (which public school should be enabling).
If poverty didn’t exist, on whom would the “superior” look down upon?
that is beside the point, Deb. 🙂
Too jaded for my tastes.
If education was a guaranteed ticket out of poverty, there would not be so many poor people like me, who have college degrees and are underemployed because they can’t find decent paying jobs. Today, “millions of college graduates over all—not just recent ones—suffer a mismatch between education and employment, holding jobs that don’t require a costly college degree.”
http://chronicle.com/article/Millions-of-Graduates-Hold/136879/
The system is rigged in favor of greedy billionaires who don’t believe in the redistribution of wealth, like the Waltons, whose six heirs have more wealth than the entire bottom 40% of our nation, and won’t pay livable wages to workers.
I bought the “education leads to the American dream” story and now I am living the American nightmare with my three college degrees and two underpaying jobs.
Clearly, it IS the case that the more highly educated people are, the less poverty they will experience. If two children, from the same backgrounds, receive different levels of education, they will, on average have correspondingly different incomes.
And so that’s why the reformers’ argument seems rational to the reformers. But, here’s the rub: One can’t improve the education of poor children simply by testing them more and giving them “higher quality” teachers (defining “higher quality” based on test scores). In fact, these standards-and-testing schemes acerbate the problem. They lead to high levels of perceived failure, on the parts of the children, at ever younger ages.
And, in ELA, the standards [sic] are so amateurishly written, so backward and ill conceived, that they will lead to dramatically worse test-driven pedagogy and curricula that will actually decrease learning across the board. That’s because these standards [sic] are random lists of skills prepared in complete ignorance of what we know of language acquisition–skills abstracted from any meaningful content or context.
The new ELA standards [sic] are going to be a disaster. We’ve already seen some of the ill effects of the skills-based state standards that were the spawn of NCLB. Well, the CCSS is all that on steroids.
Schools by themselves can’t end poverty. A strong union movement certainly helps in leveling the playing field between management and the workforce. A more progressive tax rate in which the rich actually pay their fair share would help to alleviate poverty. The top marginal tax rate in the 1950s was 91% and the economy was doing very well. Good paying full time jobs would alleviate poverty. Instead of that, we have a tsunami of part time jobs, low wage jobs, permanent temps or regular full time workers classified as “independent contractors.” The unionization rate is down to 11.3% of the workforce and people wonder why the workers are being treated as expendable indentured servants. If we had the will to do it, we could greatly reduce the level of poverty in this country, the richest most powerful country on earth. But with libertarians, tea party types, right wingers, Ayn Randians, the GOP, corporate Democrats and assorted billionaires, we will never have anything so sensible as Medicare for all. Instead of that, the regressives want to get rid of some of our best anti-poverty programs such as food stamps, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Well said.
Obvious to ALL true educators.
So the end point here is that cutting checks is a better way to address poverty than education?
Do keep up – this conversation has been had above.
Millions of struggling college graduates will attest to the fact that ensuring people are paid livable wages for their work is a better way to address poverty than education.
I think your logic circuit is fried.
Are we trying to end poverty in America or in the world? Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s – going to public schools to get vaccinated, no dental visits unless absolutely necessary, no junk food unless paid for with an after-school job, hand me downs 5 times over, no electronics, no cable, no youtube, no Netflix, no Nintendo, toys that actually broke because you played with them, etc. etc. etc. would all be considered living in poverty in this day and age. What exactly are we trying to end?
Schools cannot end poverty, however a public education system that is equal for ALL (compare two very unequal public school systems; Kenilworth, Illinois with Matteson, Illinois) CAN provide students with tthe opportunity to acquire the knowledge and drive to enter fields that will help limit poverty. Of course the same corporations and individual advocates of testing do NOT want this to happen because then the distribution of the available dollars would then also be more equal. As long as these individulas and corportaions control our country, the more inequality we will witness.
I have a master’s degree, and I live in a homeless shelter. I have consistently lived in poverty since I moved out of my parents’ house. I was reading before I entered pre-school, pegged as a genius on my elementary school entrance exams, was in the gifted and talented program in elementary and middle school and the accelerated program in high school. In my 10th grade standardized tests, I got 98th percentile on the Test of Cognitive Skills, 97-100 on all language arts sections, 86 percent on mathematical concepts, and 73% on mathematical computation. My SAT scores were 620 verbal and 490 math. I graduated college with a 2.89 GPA, with a 3.46 within my major. I got 660 verbal and 340 math on my GRE. I got a 3.48 GPA in graduate school. The only way to succeed these days is to know the right people or be a whiz at math, which we can see is my weakest area, not that my parents would get me tutoring or music lessons to help with that. I’ve actually qualified to tutor math up to the ninth grade, so I can’t be *that* bad at it.
Scott, it sometimes takes a while to catch a break, but things will not ALWAYS be as they are for you today. I wish you will during this time in your life. You are learning a lot, I’m certain, and one day you will be able to use your gifts AND at the same time be able to carry that learning, from this difficult time, with you. Good luck to you. Here’s hoping that you catch that break soon!
I earned my B.A. in 1999 and didn’t move out of my parents’ house until I was accepted to grad school in 2003. I’ve been in poverty ever since, and homelessness since May 11, 2012. I’ve never had a job that paid more than $9 an hour unless it was part time.
Education, whatever the definition is to different people, is one part of the bigger picture in alleviating poverty. Only one part. Our society is broken. The problem in schools: VAM, CC, testing, Pearson, etc. are symptoms of a much greater problem.
If and until will realize that our society is being BOUGHT by the people who “can” because they can afford to “lose” millions (since they re-“earn” it in a short time), we won’t see any change. Public school districts are the one part of “government” that people feel they have direct voice. I believe if the people are mobilized, there can be a change in what is going on in this country. The attitude of entitlement and smugness possessed by the rich and their lemmings has continued to take the voice of the middle class away, not to mention those in poverty. They can’t continue to gut the job market, gut the country of essential services, and gut education without the average person becoming totally fed up.
Although the privatization movement has been years in the making, having Citizens United come into existence has given opportunity for ALEC and the Koch Bros to expand. The states with the fights to bust unions have governors that have been trained by and follow the lead of ALEC and the Koch Bros et al.
As long as our economy is in bad straits, we are going to continue fighting this privatization take-over.
http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/30/outsourcing-america-exposed/
“The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.” ― Voltaire. Schools can not end poverty by simply making sure all students are “career and college ready”. As long as the rich and powerful continue take most of the wealth for themselves, we will have poverty. Wealth is finite.
Instead of looking to schools to solve the problem, “we are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished.” –MLK
Context is essential in a discussion such as this. I work on education for ending global poverty. In this context, we are not talking about the possibility of taxing the rich or the corporations for enough money to help all of the poor and to invest in all that is needed to support their needs. In some cases we are talking about bootstrapping from next to nothing.
It would be better if we could cut back on corruption in these countries. It would be better if the developed countries followed through on their promises to fund development. It would be better if US funds supposedly appropriated as foreign aid were not primarily military aid, and were not so often required to be spend in the US, for US-produced food or equipment, or on US consultants. It would be better if health care and agriculture and the economy were being built up.
But none of these is happening. So we at One Laptop Per Child, its software and content partner, Sugar Labs, various UN agencies, Creative Commons, and many others have proposed to provide computers, Free Software for education, Open Educational Resources under Creative Commons licenses, and other resources to about a billion children at a time. We have governments in several countries on board to do all of this, and much more.
We can see a path via education to the creation of real economies and civil society organizations, which would then open up paths to deal with all of the rest of the problems of development. We do not see a path to do all of this without fixing education in these countries.
It is important to understand that computers with Free Software cost less than printed textbooks of decent quality. So we are proposing to end poverty at a profit all around, except for the textbook publishers.
I would be happy to provide further information and to answer any questions.
If we educate everyone to their maximum potential and the economy doesn’t absorb these highly qualified people into the job force, then we will have frustrated children with no place to use their abilities, except possibly as entrepreneurs that can’t get startup money and other unemployed people who can’t buy their goods or services. An economy with no money flowing to and through the middle class will not thrive for the majority of people. The uneducated peasants of the past were not the same as the educa ed participants of our current culture. I just don’t see a light at the end of this tunnel.
Deb, I am exactly the sort of person you describe. I have a master’s degree, and I live in a homeless shelter because I can’t stand for long periods of time. I haven’t been able to get startup money, so my only alternative is to get a job. I’m standing at the Apple Store as I type this, in enough pain that I will definitely have to leave soon. Please follow my WordPress blog for more information.
So sorry for your situation. I know so many who are being disenfranchised by the corporatization of America. I believe it extends to all areas of employment and life, not just teachers. Good luck to you. Good luck to America.
Reblogged this on Scott Andrew Hutchins and commented:
Reply
Scott Andrew Hutchins
September 30, 2013 at 2:30 pm
I have a master’s degree, and I live in a homeless shelter. I have consistently lived in poverty since I moved out of my parents’ house. I was reading before I entered pre-school, pegged as a genius on my elementary school entrance exams, was in the gifted and talented program in elementary and middle school and the accelerated program in high school. In my 10th grade standardized tests, I got 98th percentile on the Test of Cognitive Skills, 97-100 on all language arts sections, 86 percent on mathematical concepts, and 73% on mathematical computation. My SAT scores were 620 verbal and 490 math. I graduated college with a 2.89 GPA, with a 3.46 within my major. I got 660 verbal and 340 math on my GRE. I got a 3.48 GPA in graduate school. The only way to succeed these days is to know the right people or be a whiz at math, which we can see is my weakest area, not that my parents would get me tutoring or music lessons to help with that. I’ve actually qualified to tutor math up to the ninth grade, so I can’t be *that* bad at it.
Reply
Robert D. Shepherd
September 30, 2013 at 6:34 pm
Scott, it sometimes takes a while to catch a break, but things will not ALWAYS be as they are for you today. I wish you will during this time in your life. You are learning a lot, I’m certain, and one day you will be able to use your gifts AND at the same time be able to carry that learning, from this difficult time, with you. Good luck to you. Here’s hoping that you catch that break soon!
Scott Andrew Hutchins
October 1, 2013 at 10:05 am
I earned my B.A. in 1999 and didn’t move out of my parents’ house until I was accepted to grad school in 2003. I’ve been in poverty ever since, and homelessness since May 11, 2012. I’ve never had a job that paid more than $9 an hour unless it was part time.
Reteach 4 America
September 30, 2013 at 11:51 am
If education was a guaranteed ticket out of poverty, there would not be so many poor people like me, who have college degrees and are underemployed because they can’t find decent paying jobs. Today, “millions of college graduates over all—not just recent ones—suffer a mismatch between education and employment, holding jobs that don’t require a costly college degree.”
http://chronicle.com/article/Millions-of-Graduates-Hold/136879/
The system is rigged in favor of greedy billionaires who don’t believe in the redistribution of wealth, like the Waltons, whose six heirs have more wealth than the entire bottom 40% of our nation, and won’t pay livable wages to workers.
I bought the “education leads to the American dream” story and now I am living the American nightmare with my three college degrees and two underpaying jobs.
Reply
deb
October 4, 2013 at 10:42 pm
If we educate everyone to their maximum potential and the economy doesn’t absorb these highly qualified people into the job force, then we will have frustrated children with no place to use their abilities, except possibly as entrepreneurs that can’t get startup money and other unemployed people who can’t buy their goods or services. An economy with no money flowing to and through the middle class will not thrive for the majority of people. The uneducated peasants of the past were not the same as the educa ed participants of our current culture. I just don’t see a light at the end of this tunnel.
Scott Andrew Hutchins
October 6, 2013 at 6:49 pm
Deb, I am exactly the sort of person you describe. I have a master’s degree, and I live in a homeless shelter because I can’t stand for long periods of time. I haven’t been able to get startup money, so my only alternative is to get a job. I’m standing at the Apple Store as I type this, in enough pain that I will definitely have to leave soon. Please follow my WordPress blog for more information.
Deb
October 6, 2013 at 7:06 pm
So sorry for your situation. I know so many who are being disenfranchised by the corporatization of America. I believe it extends to all areas of employment and life, not just teachers. Good luck to you. Good luck to America.